[ladysmudge]

thought maybe some of you will understand had such a bad day    went to a meeting today on how to go about getting loans etc to start up own company, what a waste of time I had been told to bring my business plan with me, got there and it was a man giving a talk on how to do a business plan already had mine with me got no where no body to help me look over it or speak to. feel like Im back to square one.  got a couple of grand and plenty of ideas to play around with but no body seems to help.
sorry for the moan just had to get it of my chest 

[rosskesava]

Hi smudge

I know that feeling well. 3 years ago we paid out £120 for a talk about running your own business and it was nothing more than a con.

Today and yesterday I suffered sitting in a classroom on a chair behind a desk listening to this bloke from the small business enterprise agency and it cost nothing other than my time.

It was very very interesting in terms of the actual 'how to' after you've got the idea's.

Phone up your local council and say you need one on one help - there are so many agencies for the one man band brigade who are self employed or running a small business.

I learnt some really stunning things that will help our business no end and I got on the course via a chance discussion with someone who works for the council dealing with that type of situation. Oddly enough, I got talking to him while waiting for a bus.

I'm going on the next one day course in 4 weeks time run by something to do with both the DTI and the local job centre called E Deal.

There is so much help out there. The reason being is that 80% of self employed people's business's fail in the first 3 years and they want to change that figure as most fail not from lack of endeavour or having the work, but from lack of 'know how'.

Cheers

[Moderator David@stives]

Ross
how did you get on

[rosskesava]

It was surprisingly interesting. There was a lot about how just small changes make a big difference. Such as increase the price you charge by 3% and reduce overheads by 5 and you increase profit per £1000 by quite a large amount.

Also, how you actually work out profit and predict the future. And other stuff.

The bloke who did the course was a top notch trainer who has earnt tons from training people and doing courses but had decided to give something back to an industry that had given him so much by giving 2 days every 4 weeks to people like me free of charge.

I learnt sh*t loads of very very interesting things. Some of which left me open mouthed with shock at the information.

I was dreading it. Right from the outset it was very different to what I expected.

I've now got some idea and insight just as to what type of training those way up the top of business pay big money to get and just how good it is.

Cheers